


Hold on to The Memories; They Will Hold on to You

by immortal_enemies



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28056999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortal_enemies/pseuds/immortal_enemies
Summary: Kit gets closure.
Relationships: Jem Carstairs & Kit Rook, it's at the end XD
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Hold on to The Memories; They Will Hold on to You

He scheduled the appointment on impulse.

Well, perhaps _that_ wasn't true.

He just couldn't get the image out of his head lately- or for a few months, whatever. He was only going to pick it up. He wouldn't be gone long, so what was the big deal, right?

—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—

_When Kit was in second grade, he made a mug out of clay._

_It was a dumb art assignment._

_At least, looking back that's what he told himself it was._

_Back then, he was_ ecstatic _to have the chance to play with clay, and to_ make _something? By_ himself _? He was grinning for the whole month._

_He had never been so gentle and careful and_ excited _to do a project, so he wanted to make it the best damn– he learned that word from his Dad shouting it at one of his meetings and had started using it in an attempt to impress him– mug the teacher ever laid eyes on._

_Said teacher even_ complimented _it. So, when Kit walked off the bus with the mug clutched in his hands– he loved it too much to keep it in the darkness of his backpack the whole way home– he was feeling on top of the world._

_It was about a thirty-minute walk home from the bus stop, one that involved Kit rushing down alleys and hiding in bushes to ensure he wasn't being followed._

_When he got to the alleyways he’d paused for a moment and, with the memory of falling and cutting his knee several times while running through them, carefully placed the ceramic upon the coat he brought for this reason specifically (it was rarely cold enough to need a coat in LA), and watched his feet intensely as he skipped past the broken and intact bottles of liquor. Only when he was back on the sidewalk did he take it out and continue admiring it._

It was nice, back then, to be proud of something.

_The walk took longer than normal because of his temporary caution, so when he arrived at his- seemingly abandoned- house, he felt guilty._

_Not because he was late, per se, but because now Dad had to wait even_ longer _to see the mug his son had made._

_He was gonna love it, of that much little Kit was certain._

_Kit always scrambled through a window to get inside, at his Dad’s request, but like the rest of his trip home, Kit was overly cautious. Gently placing the mug on the ground, swinging his leg over the broken windowsill and gasping quietly as he fell through and rolled carefully and fluidly, almost naturally._

_He found himself placing his hands over his mouth and giggling like crazy at the thought of his father’s face as he presented the treasure he went through so much to protect._

_He stood up awkwardly and clumsily picked up his cup and turned and ran to the kitchen, where he knew his father would be writing with concentration._

_He always was._

_But when Kit arrived at the island in the center of their rickety kitchen and squeaky floorboards, his father was nowhere to be found. Kit immediately drew his attention to the counter._

_He tried to not feel too disappointed as he reached up and grabbed the piece of paper that was sitting atop the splintering wood._

_Once he had gotten an awful splinter that he didn’t tell anyone about until it was almost too late._

_He shuddered at the intrusive memory._

_He glanced over the note to find a number: 57._

_He knew what 57 meant. That his father had packed his bag and left for a while on business._

_Kit blinked and looked down at the mug that he was so excited to show the person that wasn’t here._

_Then he was blinking back tears._

_Shame washed over him. Why was he crying? Dad would be very upset to see him crying, not because he was sad, but because crying normally meant you couldn’t handle something._

_Not being able to handle things made you weak._

_And Dad didn’t want him if he was weak._

_So he scrubbed his dirty hand across his face and took a shuddering breath, trying to stop his lip from trembling._

_He knew he was overreacting._

_That didn’t mean he had to acknowledge it._

_Kit straightened his back and calmly went to the front hall, opened the front closet, picked up a few bulky coats, and put his backpack under them burying it._

_It was just going through the motions at this point._

_He glanced at the mug in his hand, one corner of his mouth tugging downwards._

_Kit looked back up, from the hall to the living room, which was mostly empty, save for a couch and a mostly bare entertainment center._

_Where would he put the mug until Dad came back?_

_Kit hummed thoughtfully. Then his eyes lit up as he remembered his hiding spot, where he would put the things he wanted to keep safe._

_He had come up with the idea during one of his dad’s meetings when he had finally become too bored to stay sane, and had been proud of himself when he stepped back from the blanket corners he smashed in between four boxes._

_He wandered to the stairs that lead to the basement he had spent so much of his time in._

_As he made his way downstairs, he started humming a tune he remembered forever, it sounded vaguely like a lullaby; if you added the words._

_Though he didn’t know the words, he wished he did._

_Maybe he would sing it at his talent show. When he had the lyrics of course._

_He was lost in thought and slightly miscalculated his next step, and as a result, tripped and felt the mug fly out of his hand as he attempted to right himself._

_Maybe he would have if the sound of the ceramic breaking didn’t fill him with so much horror he recoiled in shock and felt his heart stop beating._

_He felt his head crash into the step below the next one, and two more tumbles later, he sprawled out on the floor._

_He stared at the ceiling blankly, his adrenaline not allowing him to yet feel the amount of pain he was truly in._

_The mug._

_He gasped and straightened up in a flash, his head spinning from the unexpected force. He blindly reached out for something that vaguely resembled broken or, hopefully intact, ceramic._

_Instead, he got a big cut across his palm._

_The pain was starting to settle in, but all he could think about was his poor mug._

_“Glue,” he whispered frantically, his voice cracking slightly from the oncoming tears as he scrambled to find the pieces, “I need_ glue _.”_

_But he knew he didn’t know where the glue was, and he wasn’t going to be able to find it._

_Then his hand was stinging._

_Then he felt nothing but pain._

_He finally started crying, unable to hold the tears back any longer._

_The crying turned into sobbing, as he clutched his hand to his chest and gasped in pain, finding he wasn’t able to stop._

_He closed his eyes as his wave of tears continued, and it was like a hallucination when he could hear his dad say, in his condescending way:_

“It’s okay, it’s not like it mattered anyway.”

_He opened his eyes through a wave of tears to find the mug on the floor, not only broken, but the plain grey now stained red with his blood._

_A new flood of tears and more sobbing ensued._

_It wasn’t even painted yet._

_He had wanted them to paint it together._

_—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—_

Kit walked out of the pottery studio.

The mug was now in his bag because looking at it and holding it made him feel sick.

Kit hated the mug. He hated it with a burning passion.

He wanted it gone.

Kit looked up solemnly at the cloudy sky, thinking of Jem. He would never call him “dad,” because only one person in his life was ever going to be his _dad_. It didn’t feel right to call someone who cared about him- or so he claimed- the word he called someone who didn’t care about him for shit.

The mug was a heavyweight for him.

But he had to do this.

He couldn’t get rid of it.

It wasn’t even painted yet.

He wanted them to paint it together.

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeeyyyy! This was just something I wrote because I haven't really posted in a while.... Heh?  
> OH! I never posted this on here, but I did on Tumblr. It's the beginning of a fic I'm working on, so here!
> 
> —·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—
> 
> Kit shouldered his way through the large crowd of the London Shadow Market.
> 
> He had lost track of Jem when he said he wanted to go off on his own. He squinted past the many Downworlders who were occupying the space between each booth.
> 
> "Jem?" He called through the bustling area.
> 
> He glanced back, wondering if they had already crossed paths.
> 
> They hadn't.
> 
> Kit scrunched his eyebrows together.
> 
> "Christopher!" A voice called. It wasn't Jem, but it was very familiar.
> 
> He shouldn't have looked behind him.
> 
> But he did.
> 
> He should have run.
> 
> But he didn't.
> 
> That was his first mistake, and for all he knew, his last.  
> —·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—·—
> 
> So ye! I'm working on a lot right now!  
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this! :'D


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